This monsoon, it’s pouring freebies

Free footwear to tribals engaged in plucking tendu (Beedi) leaves from forests, free textbooks to schoolchildren, free cycles to schoolgirls from below poverty line (BPL) families, free uniforms to SC, ST students, free kits to traditional barbers, free potter’s wheels to potters, free pilot training to SC, ST students and even supply of copies of revenue records free of cost to the poor are among the many other freebies doled out by the BJP Government.

Besides, there are many schemes with high subsidies as part of the Government’s efforts to “reach out” to the poor. Tribal families are being supplied salt at 25 paise per kg and a full meal (cooked rice and pulses) for Rs 5 at the state-sponsored ‘daal-bhaat’ centres across the state. Apart from these, farmers’ loan to the tune of Rs 106 crore has been waived off.

Raman Singh welcomed 2008, which is also the Assembly election year, with his most populist Rs 837-crore scheme, aimed at providing 35 kg of rice every month at a highly subsidised rate of Rs 3 per kg to each of the 34 lakh BPL families in the state. This scheme has directly benefited about 65 per cent of the state’s 21-million population, and the ruling party is hoping to ride on this scheme to retain power in the Assembly elections scheduled for November.

The burden of all these schemes on the state exchequer this year is a whopping Rs 1200 crore. But, the speed at which the state Government is announcing these subsidies suggests that funds are not a problem and there is only a dearth of innovative ideas for more such schemes.

“We are not promising the people to construct just bridges and culverts. Our focus is towards directly benefiting the poor,” Raman Singh told The Indian Express during his ongoing ‘Vikas Yatra’, a pre-poll campaign aimed at apprising the people about the series of welfare steps taken by his Government.

BJP’s high-pitch publicity of its Government’s pro-poor schemes has forced other political parties to work on similar populist schemes.

Opposition Congress initially mulled over promising rice at Rs 2 a kg, but later proposed to provide it for free to all BPL families and other needy, if voted to power. Mohammad Akbar, food and civil supplies minister in the Ajit Jogi Government, prepared a blue-print of this proposal and submitted it to the organisation for discussion and subsequent inclusion in the party manifesto for the elections.

The Congress proposal, known as ‘Akbar formula’, points out that the state Government spends Rs 837 crore on implementation of the scheme to cover 34 lakh BPL families. As rice quota is also being allocated from the Centre, it is possible to supply rice free of cost to all BPL families and even the Above Poverty Line (APL) families which could not get included in the BPL list due to technical reasons. And the costs involved in such a scheme will not be more than Rs 1,250 crore.

It’s not that all leaders are not concerned over the fall-out of such populist schemes. “Will it not create a society of freeloaders?” asked a senior Congress leader at a meeting where the idea was discussed. However, few others pointed out that there was no point in worrying about it as party’s priority was to win the elections.

Not lagging behind the mainstream parties, the BSP, which aims to emerge as a balancing force in this Assembly polls, has announced that if voted to power, its government would distribute three acres of land to each landless family in the state so that they could take up cultivation and become self-reliant.

The Chhattisgarh Vikas Party has gone even a step ahead and promised to implement a ‘Voter Pension Scheme’ that will offer a monthly pension of Rs 1,750 to the voters, if the party wins in the Assembly elections.